My Personal Stupid Awards

I was going to hand out a stupidity award today but found there is already an organization doing so on an annual basis.*

For plain stupidity can anyone beat the Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli who had a T-shirt made with killer cartoons printed on it.

Another award has to go to all those rioting fanatics destroying their own towns and killing their own people over a bunch of cartoons published in a foreign country. What have shopping areas to do with it? A spot of loot? Simple minded blood lust? Sticking it to free speech in some obscure way only they understand? Nicely disguised sabotage of a competitor?

Those thoughts led to a search for the fundamental beliefs of the three religions who believe in the same ONE GOD. I found a BBC site that had already done the spade work. **

In his final sermon Muhammad summarized the heart of Islam:

Belief in One God without images or symbols,

Equality of all the Believers without distinction of race or class, the superiority of individuals being based solely on piety;

Sanctity of life, property and honour;

Abolition of interest, and of vendettas and private justice;

Better treatment of women;

Obligatory inheritance and distribution of the property of deceased persons among near relatives of both sexes, and removal of the possibility of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of the few."

Sounds good, doesn't it? I'd go for it if they didn't happily ignore most of Mohammed's strictures except the one dealing with images.


The great Jewish scholar Hillel (70 BCE-CE 10) was asked to
summarize the essence of Judaism. He put it like this:

"What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbour: this is this is the whole of Jewish Law; the rest is mere commentary"

That I like. If we all lived by that the world would be a happy place. Of course, there are all those laws and tabu's that come attached.

Basic Christianity: I couldn't find a concise summary but this from the same site as the other two so obviously their compiler did no better than I did seeking the 'heart' of Christianity.

• There is only one god.

• God has created the world distinct from himself but is believed to be active within it. ·

• Humans are created at a distance from God and are responsible for their own lives. God is judge of all that they do, but also seeks to help them when they go wrong. ·

• God reveals himself in three 'persons': Father, Son (Jesus Christ) and Holy Spirit. However, these three persons are regarded as a unity, sharing one 'substance'.

WELL! That doesn't say much, does it? Of course, how could it say anything to encapsulate the heart of a religion which is made of more splinters than solid substance.

Years ago a young boy told me "I am NOT a Christian, I'm a Baptist!"

A couple of weeks ago another young man said to me "I am not a Christian, I'm a Catholic". Two examples of splinterhood.

All three claim descent from Adam, created by The Almighty God whom, they individually believe is watching out for them. All I can ask is, if he's all that Almighty does He want't a Third World War? Has He watched all the previous wars fought in His name with so much pleasure he's become an addict?

A stupidity award to God? It is less nasty than a Plain Bloody Minded Evil award.

* http://www.stupidityawards.com

** http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/features/world_religions/